As Promised...An Update

I think I am starting to get used to this place. I know, scary thought. I will admit that I stop in my tracks at the absurdity at times, but more often, I just stop, nod my head and realize, it's just Ithaca.
For instance, I went to an informal get together/informational meeting for the Vineyard Church's worship team a little while back. The email that I recieved with the information about the meeting said that there would be lunch, featuring vegan, organic, gluten free chili. Now don't get me wrong, I have no problem with being health concious and all, but this is verging on the absurd. Needless to say, I ate ahead of time. The meeting was pretty much a bust as well, it looks like I won't be playing at the Vineyard church any time soon.
Speaking of church, Bri and I branched out and tried a new one. We attended the Tabernacle Baptist church a few blocks up the road from our house. After checking out the website, we really didn't have that great of an idea of what we were getting ourselves into, but we wanted to check out a church that was within walking distance. I will say that I enjoyed the fact that the hymn book was the good old Chapel Hymnal that I spent so many wonderful hours with in Hymnology, Theory, Instrumentation, and who knows how many other music classes at Bethel. For those of you wondering at this point, no, this was not a BGC church. I am pretty sure if this congregation encountered a BGC church, they would cry heathen. Never before have I heard the term Fundamentalism thrown around as a badge of honor in quite the way they did. Also, I have never before heard a church's constitution quoted as justification for a sermon point. The plus side of going, we no longer have to wonder if we should check it out again.

In adventuring news, Bri and I took a trip up the east side of the lake last week Sunday. Now if you recall my review of the west side of the lake, you will remember it is filled with vineyards and tourist stops. Not so much on the east side. It is primarily farming country until you reach Aurora about 30 miles north of Ithaca. Home of Wells College (as in Wells Fargo), Aurora is a pretty quaint New England town. I would definitely enjoy spending time there in the future. Past Aurora, we just kept going and found ourselves at the North end of the Lake.
We decided to venture into Seneca Falls. For those of you who aren't intimately educated with all the history and geography of Upstate NY, Seneca Falls was the home of the great women's rights convention of 1848 (thank you wikipedia). It is considered by some to be the birthplace of feminism. Now don't get me wrong, that is cool and all, but my favorite Seneca Falls fact is that it was the filming location for my favorite Christmas movie of all time, "It's a Wonderful Life." Sadly, in our travels around town, I didn't recognize anything from the movie, but we did get to see the city park named after the 1848 convention.
Upon leaving Seneca Falls, we took an out of the way path back down to Ithaca and got to see a lot of the little towns along the way. It is eerily similar to driving through southwest MN or NW Iowa. Corn, soybeans and lots of little farmhouses. Good times.
I will end here for now. I have some pictures to add from a walk I just took up Cascadilla Creek, but I will make you all anxiously await those.